His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana and Gavin Brown, Executive Director of MAMA, meet to discuss the MAMA-HELP project at the Office of the President, Flagstaff House, Accra, in August 2017

Outbreaks of deadly contagious diseases, cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes… all occur with depressing regularity. “First Responders” are very often the United States military who arrive on scene within days and provide the initial relief and perform assessment surveys to define the scope of the disaster.

After a few days/weeks the international community gears up and non-governmental organizations (NGO) start arriving to provide follow-on disaster recovery assistance. These NGO’s often need to create their own individual logistical network since indigenous transportation systems are non-existent or in disarray.

Local ports and airfields descend into disorder as NGOs vie for priority for supplies to be transported to their front-line teams. The resulting gridlock delays effective response at best and, at worst, misdirects and misallocates supplies creating an overabundance in low priority areas while areas of greatest need are underserved.

What is needed in these emergencies is establishment, on-the-fly, of the equivalent of a combination of an Amazon or E-Bay ordering system and a FedEx, UPS or DHL logistics system. The objective to get emergency assistance where it is needed, when it is needed.

MAMA’s HELP program is being created to be able to be deployed, on scalable basis, to provide a coherent logistics system during humanitarian emergencies. The HELP program consists of two elements:

1) A headquarters unit where needs are catalogued and prioritized, in-bounded supplies inventoried, and deliveries dispatched all through a networked database.